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It was good until it sucked

[Spoilers, I guess, if you haven't played Assassin's Creed II.]

I've been playing through Assassin's Creed II and really enjoying it, until I got to a point where I'm told to kill Rodrigo Borgia. Being a total badass with a wrist pistol, I go about doing just that, but every time I get close some other idiots get in the way, including, at one point, my "friends".

Then when I'm about to kill him he kicks me...and runs off. AND THEN I'm told that I shouldn't bother chasing him.

From that point on the rest of the game soured, especially when essentially the same thing happened again and some bastard stabbed me as I was killing him - me, the craziest assassin in Italy.

I was reminded of the ending of God of War II. You spend the entire game establishing that you are the king of all hurt, and when you finally have Zeus in your arms and are literally going to break his back, he...I can't even remember - flies away? bedazzles you? - and suddenly he's on Mt. Olympus, raising the question as to why he didn't do that in the first place.

And despite having the greatest time playing through that game, all I really remember is the non-ending. I get that III was already in the works, but when you spend the game establishing that you can and should kill anything, having a guy just run away is basically the gaming equivalent of "it was all a dream".

Anyone play anything else that had that kind of moment? Not necessarily the same mechanic, but a moment so jarring that it ruined an otherwise enjoyable experience? (And I'm exaggerating a bit with ACII, but not GOWII.)

I may be stepping on holy ground here but Planescape Torment has recently been like this for me. I was obsessed and enamoured with it for the first half, absolutely loving most of what it had to offer and it was easy to ignore the flaws because the good things were so numerous and lovely. And then it just... changes, once you leave Sigil and get transported into Curst. Sidequests stop existing and in fact the game actually punishes you if you try to do any (seeing as one of the main Curst quests can also be done, to a far less rewarding result, way before you actually progress to that part), the story starts to unravel and what's worst, the game becomes massively combat-focused by chucking dungeons and caverns filled with loads and loads of enemies and boss battles at you. Which isn't a particularly good thing seeing as the combat in the game is downright terrible; at least it was easy to forgive that flaw when it wasn't focused on at all but it becomes impossible to look over it later on.

Eventually my will to play simply disappeared and I stopped playing. I think I was quite near the end but I just couldn't take the constant trudging through terrible combat and the save/reload samba that came out of it. What a shame.

I've been playing through Assassin's Creed II and really enjoying it, until I got to a point where I'm told to kill Rodrigo Borgia. Being a total badass with a wrist pistol, I go about doing just that, but every time I get close some other idiots get in the way, including, at one point, my "friends".

Then when I'm about to kill him he kicks me...and runs off. AND THEN I'm told that I shouldn't bother chasing him.

From that point on the rest of the game soured, especially when essentially the same thing happened again and some bastard stabbed me as I was killing him - me, the craziest assassin in Italy.

I was reminded of the ending of God of War II. You spend the entire game establishing that you are the king of all hurt, and when you finally have Zeus in your arms and are literally going to break his back, he...I can't even remember - flies away? bedazzles you? - and suddenly he's on Mt. Olympus, raising the question as to why he didn't do that in the first place.

And despite having the greatest time playing through that game, all I really remember is the non-ending. I get that III was already in the works, but when you spend the game establishing that you can and should kill anything, having a guy just run away is basically the gaming equivalent of "it was all a dream".

Anyone play anything else that had that kind of moment? Not necessarily the same mechanic, but a moment so jarring that it ruined an otherwise enjoyable experience? (And I'm exaggerating a bit with ACII, but not GOWII.)

Oh you are so going to hate me, but: Yes. That's supposed to happen. It's how the animus works. I know it's annoying, but the great thing (in my opinion atleast) is that they have a valid explanation.

"Quantacat's name is still recognised even if he watches on with detached eyes like Peter Molyneux over a cube in 3D space, staring at it with tears in his eyes, softly whispering... Someday they'll get it."

Assassin's Creed Brotherhood just gets quite lame when you''ve basically finished all the map-conquering unit-training stuff and only got the story missions to do. The story's just not so interesting, enemies are more bland (that's the one thing the AC series does right; enenmies with interesting motivations, especially the first one), and there's no point in getting all the gimmicks.
I've still got the finish it, and I've heard the ending's really worth it, but I can wait, to be honest.

Whenever I play ACII I just get so angry at getting pulled out of the gameworld. Ezio is fantastic as a character and I just loved running around the city as it had such character, but all those 'real world' elements kill it for me.

That said I'm really looking forward to playing Ass Bro at some stage.

I may be stepping on holy ground here but Planescape Torment has recently been like this for me. I was obsessed and enamoured with it for the first half, absolutely loving most of what it had to offer and it was easy to ignore the flaws because the good things were so numerous and lovely. And then it just... changes, once you leave Sigil and get transported into Curst. Sidequests stop existing and in fact the game actually punishes you if you try to do any (seeing as one of the main Curst quests can also be done, to a far less rewarding result, way before you actually progress to that part), the story starts to unravel and what's worst, the game becomes massively combat-focused by chucking dungeons and caverns filled with loads and loads of enemies and boss battles at you. Which isn't a particularly good thing seeing as the combat in the game is downright terrible; at least it was easy to forgive that flaw when it wasn't focused on at all but it becomes impossible to look over it later on.

Eventually my will to play simply disappeared and I stopped playing. I think I was quite near the end but I just couldn't take the constant trudging through terrible combat and the save/reload samba that came out of it. What a shame.

The thing is you are getting quite near the end so the game wants you to keep up the story momentum rather than having you run around doing other things. Most RPGs do this: Baldur's Gate 2 from Spellhold onwards, Neverwinter Nights from the battle for Neverwinter onward, Dragon Age and the Landsmeet are just a few examples.
It would have been nice to have had some more interaction with the inhabitants of Curst as they seemed like interesting assholes, but the earlier parts of the game just had so many sidequests that I never felt I was being shortchanged.

As for the game becoming too combat-heavy, I think there are only 2 fights you actually need to do from Curst to the end of the game. Everything else you can just run past if you want and as most XP comes from conversations and completing the quests then you shouldn't be underpowered by the end.

OT: AssCreed 2 annoyed me as well with that massive bit of character assassination. You let the guy ultimately responsible for your families death go just because some people essentially say "It's not worth it". Too fucking right it is. And look - I have a gun, I could hit the fat bastard from here. No, fine, okay, let's let him go and see how that works out. Oh well shit, he became the Pope. Thanks, assholes.

Getting stabbed at the end of the Battle of Forli was annoying but easily forgiven because it set up Bonfire of the Vanities, which was my favourite part of the game. 9 people to kill, sometimes with restrictions and sometimes without, and Ezio should be at full strength. That made me go from liking the game to loving it.

Getting stabbed at the end of the Battle of Forli was annoying but easily forgiven because it set up Bonfire of the Vanities, which was my favourite part of the game. 9 people to kill, sometimes with restrictions and sometimes without, and Ezio should be at full strength. That made me go from liking the game to loving it.

Not sure how relevant it is but both those sections were DLC in the original console release.

That bit in Ass Creed 2 with Borgia didn't bother me too much as I knew from the second I got that objective that I wasn't going to succeed as I knew from history that he became Pope (I don't know if the in-game codex even tells you as much?).

The thing is you are getting quite near the end so the game wants you to keep up the story momentum rather than having you run around doing other things. Most RPGs do this: Baldur's Gate 2 from Spellhold onwards, Neverwinter Nights from the battle for Neverwinter onward, Dragon Age and the Landsmeet are just a few examples.
It would have been nice to have had some more interaction with the inhabitants of Curst as they seemed like interesting assholes, but the earlier parts of the game just had so many sidequests that I never felt I was being shortchanged.

Oh aye, I'm aware of RPGs ramping up the momentum by the end and I don't mind it (loved the way eg Dragon Age did it, from your examples) but in Planescape it feels particularly jarring, it's like the game suddenly loses all that made it interesting (to me) as it switches from the deep, entangled Sigil to the rather straightforward Curst and ramps up the action (which admittedly you can run away from but it's a bit of an awkward solution).

You mentioned Baldur's Gate and I might as well derail this topic slightly to enquire: how similar are the combat systems in BG games and Torment? From what little superficial impressions I have on BG they look a bit similar but not sure how it works in actual practice. Been wanting to get acquainted with the Baldur's Gate series for ages but after Torment and their seeming mechanical similarities I've got a bit wary.

Oh aye, I'm aware of RPGs ramping up the momentum by the end and I don't mind it (loved the way eg Dragon Age did it, from your examples) but in Planescape it feels particularly jarring, it's like the game suddenly loses all that made it interesting (to me) as it switches from the deep, entangled Sigil to the rather straightforward Curst and ramps up the action (which admittedly you can run away from but it's a bit of an awkward solution).

You mentioned Baldur's Gate and I might as well derail this topic slightly to enquire: how similar are the combat systems in BG games and Torment? From what little superficial impressions I have on BG they look a bit similar but not sure how it works in actual practice. Been wanting to get acquainted with the Baldur's Gate series for ages but after Torment and their seeming mechanical similarities I've got a bit wary.

Black Isle had a few time problems with Torment as they (& later Obsidian) always seem to. Some stuff was cut so maybe that's the reason.
Baldurs Gate 1 has combat quite simiar to Torment except it flows better due to not having that radial menu or spell FMVs. Also, there are mods which allow it to be played in the BG2 engine, which makes everything better.
Speaking of which, Baldur's Gate 2 has the best combat of the lot. Everything is a lot more clear, the AI works better, mages become insanely useful, there are many classes & subclasses, the game feels more responsive and has better pathfinding, and the encounters are scripted more intelligently. Really it just has better core gameplay. The story and characters are good too, although nowhere near the level of Torment; unfortunately playing the game means whenever you play other Bioware games you notice many characters are very similar to BG ones.
Highly recommend the series though, but if you don't like the original then still check out the sequel.

@deano2099
I had heard those 2 bits were DLC, dickishly left out of the game (and obviously so because there were 2 missing memory sections) on the consoles by Ubisoft but nicely included by them for the PC - something they should get a bit of credit for. Both the DLC were really good too.
Not sure if the in-game codex tells you but the geeky guy in the future-setting makes a comment just after Borgias gets away about him becoming Pope years later.

You mentioned Baldur's Gate and I might as well derail this topic slightly to enquire: how similar are the combat systems in BG games and Torment? From what little superficial impressions I have on BG they look a bit similar but not sure how it works in actual practice. Been wanting to get acquainted with the Baldur's Gate series for ages but after Torment and their seeming mechanical similarities I've got a bit wary.

They're very similar, same engine just BG is more zoomed out. BG has a much bigger emphasis on the combat too although it can be enjoyable. That's the thing with PS:T, you could avoid most combat so when you had to do some it could be a bit annoying but was fairly simple. BG forces you to get to grips with the system. If you hate it though you'll have the same problem with BG.

Assassin's Creed 2 Was Never Good
the article outlines quite well the problems with AC2, and why some people walk away bitter from it. plus its a funny read. i recommend reading other post on that blog, theyre quite insightful about games, shame its no longer updated.

favorite quotes: "AC2 greets you with the gap-toothed grin shared by all careless ports: an intro screen asking you to "Press Enter"."
"The game's appeal was thin even before it became a monument to corporate spite."

Fallout 3 was good until I realized that the main plot revolved around who gets to purify irradiated water (not a difficult task at all) using the Jefferson Memorial, which is at the mouth of a tidal basin. A war is being fought over who gets to turn on the tap of a machine that does nothing but piss in the ocean.

I had to stop playing. Who would green-light a story so daft?

NalanoH. Wildmoon
Director of the Friends of Nalano PAC
Attorney at Lawl
"His lack of education is more than compensated for by his keenly developed moral bankruptcy." - Woody Allen

Keepsake
It was good, except for the puzzles (Which are kinda the point of adventure games, but hey), but the story went a bit poor in the later end of the game, especially once Zak (Voiced by Nolan North, of course) had reverted to human form.

Regarding God of War 2... didn't Athena show up and save Zeus, and Kratos kills her instead, giving Zeus a chance to escape? Still not a great ending, but not as bad as you make it sound. Just not nearly as cool as the awesome ending to #1.